Grandmas Project: memory and affection in the kitchen

Abstract

In this article, oral narratives of older women participating of the Grandmas Project are analyzed, which consists of short films of eight minutes each produced by grandchildren together with their grandmothers, who prepare recipes associated with their life stories. In the intergenerational
encounters between grandchildren and grandmothers a dialogue is established in which memory acts as a motivation for each fi lmmaker as well as an evocation for the older women in the revealing of their recipes. Historical and social contexts, relations with time and one's own body, all shape the memories narrated by the grandmothers, opening a window to the past which is given new meaning in the present. The kitchen, the site where the fi lming is conducted, is also a place of memory, aff ection and life.